Monday, July 21, 2008

"The First Large Gathering of the Clan......"

Have I mentioned that Don's mother's family were Scottish? :) Thus my use of the word, "clan". Our first large gathering of the reunion weekend, was Friday night at Don's cousin Kim, and her husband Carlton's home. Thankfully, we had very nice weather, although hot, because the event was planned for outside. As you can see by the number of cousins and their families, it was a well attended event, which kicked off the weekends activities. Family members came in from both coasts and various states between. As you also might have noticed, Don is not in this photo......he took this photo with our small camera, due to the fogging up of his large camera's lens, which had been inside in air conditioning. The announcement to take the family photo was a surprise to him, otherwise, he'd have had the camera set up on it's tripod and acclimated to the heat outside.......

After the main photo, Don couldn't help himself and continued to take more photos. Here, from left to right:Donna in the far back (from Colorado), her new son in law, Nathan, holding his step daughter Jocelyn, Donna's daughter Cindy (Colorado), Dolly (Iowa), me, Jon, and his wife Deblyn (Iowa). Jon and Deblyn live in Cedar falls, IA, which had also been hit hard by flooding this summer. Fortunately, their home is on a hill, and was not flooded, although their barn had 2' of water IN IT'S LOFT!! They were very lucky........many of their neighbors lost everything.

Deblyn, Jodie (Iowa), Don's younger brother, Bob (Virginia), and Roy, Jodie's husband. Jodie was married to Don's Uncle Herbert, who died very young from a heart attack. Jodie has become the "unofficial" matriarch of the family.

On Thursday, Don and I drove to Cummings, IA, to visit Dolly, another cousin, who is a bit more distantly connected than most of the cousins that were to attend the reunion. :) She is a true genealogist and was able to give Don some photos to scan, and information about the family, that he did not have. We spent 4 hours with her and they seemed to fly....she a fount of knowledge and humorous, too! :)